Chapter Twenty

Several minutes went by in silence. Both Legolas and Aragorn were leaning back against the rock wall and letting their tense muscles relax as much as they dared under the circumstances. They were using the time simply to take a few deep breaths and experience the peace of just sitting still and not having to crawl over, around and between rocks or dodge searching trolls, not to mention continuing to recover from a much too close escape from the lightning bolt.

The thunder that had been booming overhead was now moving off, taking with it the darkest of the clouds. That meant that the chance of more lightning striking in this area was quickly decreasing. It was, however, still raining rather hard.

The two friends were well aware they were in the safest place possible short of being completely out of troll country. That was a goal they would strive for even to their last breath, which neither wanted to think about.

Aragorn easily felt Legolas’s body trembling. It was impossible not to, since they were virtually jammed up together inside the narrow shelter. He wanted to say something, but couldn’t quite bring himself to do so, especially since there was absolutely nothing he could do about it.
He knew he could offer words of comfort, but he was afraid that mentioning it would only make Legolas feel the need to make denials of hurt or declarations of well-being, neither of which would ease the man’s concern.

It was best just to keep his worry to himself until or unless the elf got worse. That would put a whole new light on the situation, and his silence would definitely be broken.

What Aragorn didn’t know was that the elf was getting worse. At the moment, Legolas wasn’t in any real danger from any of his injuries, but they were all making themselves felt in a most unpleasant way. He couldn’t believe that Aragorn hadn’t said something already, but even his curiosity as to why that was the case wasn’t going to make him bring the subject up first.

Ignoring the water that was running down the wall at his back, Legolas rested his head against the solid stone and closed his eyes. Maybe he could just will away the pain and dizziness in his head and the throbbing in his shoulder, as well as the collection of minor but persistent hurts. Such an endeavor rarely worked unless he had far more pressing things to occupy his mind, like fighting orcs or spiders or escaping trolls. He almost laughed.

Here he was in the one place around here where he could count himself relatively safe enough to relax a bit, and it was that very peace that kept him from being distracted enough to forget how miserable he felt. He sighed. Just one of life’s little ironies.

Refusing to give in to his misery and not wanting to disturb Aragorn, who appeared to be relaxing himself, Legolas concentrated outward, listening to the trolls still searching the rocks, the almost hissing sound the rain made, as it hit the rocks, and the constant roar of the river, all punctuated occasionally by the retreating thunder.

Listening to his surroundings was such a natural thing for him and often done without much thought, that it was only then the elf realized he could hear without straining to do so. It was less sharp than usual, but the sounds were no longer muffled. At least one part of his body had righted itself, he mused. He turned his attention back to the sounds outside the shelter.

Having been deep in the rocks and knowing they had once gone around a bend in the river, the archer had no idea how far downriver these large boulders went. They didn’t exist upriver near the forest. They were obviously the result of chunks of the cliff that had fallen, similar to the two huge pieces he and Aragorn now sat under.

Legolas knew the cliff could go on for miles or end a hundred yards from here. He wished he had taken the extra time, when they first spotted the rocks, to look more closely at what lay ahead of them.

Common sense told him he had done all he could just to get to this place without being caught. After all, by the time he and Aragorn decided to head this way, they were running for their lives. Still the elf wished he had done more to investigate what lay around them.

It often made the difference in a battle, large or small, to be aware of where you were and what possible land features you could utilize to your advantage. That lesson had certainly been drummed into him when he was training to be a warrior. There were many more things, often things easy to overlook, than just trees or a river to rely on.

The elf would also dearly love to have known how close they were to the edge of the trolls’ territory. A river had been the boundary on the far side, but was that the case here? While he doubted that he and Aragorn would be pursued beyond its borders, he couldn’t be sure these creatures would let a little thing like the end of their land stop them from getting what they were after. Never underestimate the enemy. Another lesson drummed into his young, warrior-in-training head.

Legolas’s attention was jerked away from his thoughts when he heard a cracking, crunching noise high above and looked up, even though he knew he wouldn’t be able to see anything. He was sure he knew what the noise meant.

Almost by reflex, Legolas grabbed Aragorn and pulled him down, leaning forward and crossing his arms to form a shield so that Aragorn’s head and neck were protected.

Aragorn, not having heard the noise, had no idea what was happening. He didn’t have time to ask before a tremendous crash erupted next to the shelter followed by shattering stone. The earth was shaken so violently that the tops of the shelter slabs, huge as they were, moved enough to grind together, sending tiny chunks of rock raining down with the real rain.

“What was that?” Aragorn asked, as Legolas released him, and the ranger sat straight up, eyes wide in surprise. “It wasn’t another lightning strike,” he stated, sure it couldn’t really have been unless several had hit at once.

“No,” Legolas replied. “Another piece of the cliff fell.” He felt confident enough of that fact to be able to say so with certainty. “The rain probably loosened and washed away the dirt in some of the larger cracks in the section next to the piece we are now sitting under.” He didn’t even realize that this had become one of the very things that would make him forget his aches and pains.

Aragorn looked up but had to jerk his head aside, as a drop of water hit him square in the eye. He blinked several times and pointed upward. Some of the gaps between the rock slabs at the top had grown in size. “Our roof has shifted.”

“So it would seem,” was Legolas’s only comment, remembering the grinding he had heard a few moments ago. He knew that they were extremely lucky one slab hadn’t shifted inside the other, so that both ended up collapsing.

“That falling cliff could have landed on top of us,” Aragorn observed with no lack of grateful appreciation that it hadn’t. “Would these rocks have protected us or caved in at the top of us, do you think?”

The elf shrugged. “The latter most likely, but it probably depends on how large the piece is that fell.”

“It sounded pretty large,” the ranger remarked.

The almost casual discussion struck Aragorn as one that was keeping him from shaking. That was a near miss even more remarkable than their escape from the lightning. Well, he amended to himself, they were about even.

With the exception of the rain and the river, all had become relatively quiet once the sound of the crash had subsided.

At first, the trolls had been frozen with shock and fear but had recovered and were now scattering, waving their arms in the air and shouting, much the same way they had done after the lightning strike. None of them had been close enough to the falling chunk of stone to be hit by any of the shattering rock, which had hit right below the cliff face it had broken away from. The whole incident had frightened them worse than the lightning had done.

Still shaky but unwilling to show it, Tack approached Scron, a glower on his ugly face. “We gotta leave. Cacthin’ those two ain’t worth gittin’ ourselves killed over.”

Drawing himself up to his full height, Scron retuned the other troll’s scowl with one of his own. He pointed to himself. “I say when we leave here. You got no say.”

It might not be such a bad thing for Scron to get killed, Tack thought to himself. Then he could grab the leadership quickly, the way Picket and Scron had done.

Tack was tempted to say that Scron might be next, after what had happened to Wig, but self-preservation prevented the words from leaving his mouth. Now, was not the time to challenge Scron, who was too strong.

Even though Tack wasn’t about to say anything that might make him the next intentional target, he still couldn’t resist making a parting comment. “Maybe they got caught under the rocks.” Then he turned and left Scron to ponder that notion.

Scron scratched his head. Maybe the captives did get mashed underneath the rock when it tumbled from the cliff. Several smaller pieces had split off from the stone, but the main piece was too big to move, so how would they know if the captives were under it? Not deterred by that question, he yelled out for all the trolls to gather around him.

“Look ’round them rocks,” Scron said as he swung his hand in circles, vaguely pointing in the direction of the newly shattered rocks. “I want them captives found and brought to me, if they ain’t dead.”

These trolls may not do much in the way of logical reasoning, but it was unavoidable that they wouldn’t pick up some knowledge from the natural world they lived in.

Using an example of that knowledge, Scron said, “Look fer blood on the ground. If they got mashed, they’d bleed.”

The rock that had fallen may have missed the shelter, but it managed to split several of the boulders that served as protection from the trolls, who had been too big to get in between them. That, however, was no longer the case.

It didn’t take long for a dozen trolls to start milling around the remnants of the boulders, upturning those they could lift and moving aside those they couldn’t quite get off the ground.

It soon became apparent to Legolas and Aragorn what was happening outside. The unmistakable sound of rummaging trolls and shifting stone easily reached them. They stared at each other and then at the open end of their shelter. There were still boulders in front of it but if a troll somehow saw the entrance, he could lean in from the side, stick his head down and look inside. None of the creatures might have been able to actually reach the elf and ranger, but they could certainly pound on the sides of the slabs until they finally broke and collapsed inward.

This situation was getting a bit too uncomfortable for the two companions, as they both stared at the shelter entrance. Neither dared take a deep breath, though both were aching to do just that.

“Please, Valar, don’t let any of them find us,” Aragorn whispered half under his breath. Even the elf sitting close to him barely heard the words.

This concentration of dreadful anticipation went on for interminable minutes, which seemed to stretch on into hours with no relief.

Suddenly, a hairy troll leg came into view and Aragorn thought his heart had tried to leap out of his chest and had gotten caught in his throat instead.

The appendage belonged to a troll that he could hear shifting a piece of rock and grumbling in frustration the whole time. Then the leg disappeared and a large piece of rock slammed down across the front of the shelter, plunging it into shadowy gloom.

It seemed that the troll had not found what he was looking for and had cast the stone aside right where it would inadvertently do two things: It blocked the shelter entrance from being discovered, and it blocked any chance of escape for the two friends, who sat and stared in shock at this latest turn of events.

Scron, who had moved up right next to one of the shelter slabs spoke up loudly, “Anybody seen anything?”

There were several negative mumblings before Tack said, “If they’s under there, we can’t find no proof.”

“The rain mighta washed the blood away,” Scron told him. He stood still for a minute and then said, “If they ain’t dead, we gotta find ’em. Start lookin’ down the river like we was doin’ before.”

A short time later, Legolas and Aragorn heard the trolls begin searching the rocks on the downriver side of the shelter. It would take them a while to get far enough away for Legolas and Aragorn to feel safe again.

The elf was staring at the rock that covered the shelter opening. He could feel his heartbeat starting to pound in his ears. Being in this cave-like stone structure was bad enough, but now he was closed in, and the thought of being trapped did not sit well with him. Legolas was far from panicking, but he was also far from calm.

Aragorn placed his hand on Legolas’s arm. “All we have to do is wait for the trolls to get out of earshot, and we can push the rock away.” He wanted to ease his friend’s discomfort without actually expressing the fact he knew how much Legolas hated being in places like this.

Legolas nodded, forcing himself to be positive. Somehow just hearing the words Aragorn could have said would make it worse. He knew what his friend was trying to do, and he was grateful.

“I know we must wait,” Legolas said with as calm a voice as he could. After all, he told himself, if could be far worse. They could be in a real cave deep inside the cliff with a blocked entrance and no way to get out at all.

The archer shook his head. Now was not the time to be thinking such things. His head hurt, but his mind wasn’t fuzzy or muddled, just not on the subject it should be. Legolas knew the healer next to him would probably diagnose his head injury, rather than his hatred of small, dark places, as the cause for his drifting concentration.

When he looked at Aragorn to reassure him, he saw the gray, slightly narrowed, eyes staring back at him.

“Your head is worse, isn’t it?”

Legolas stubbornly kept his mouth closed.

Undeterred, Aragorn continued. “Since we’re waiting until the trolls are far enough away not to hear or spot us leaving, we have the time now to discuss your injuries - in detai,” he added firmly, feeling a measure of triumph that he had somehow trapped the elf into talking about what the man wanted, and that was never an easy thing to do.

“We can discuss that at a later time,” Legolas replied, showing a little annoyance. He had just known Aragorn would find him out sooner or later.

TBC